unravel

Alright.  I’m going to try a little random association with some tunes that I was singing to myself yesterday.  They cropped up every so often, and I switched interchangeably between them; I leapt freely among them with little concern for how different they are.  So, I can only assume that I have formed some associative link in my mind between them.  It’s like my subconscious is telling me to look deeper, to investigate why all three are so compelling in the same way (that’s assuming there IS a relationship; that’s the reason for this post).

And those songs?  One was this song by a band I had never heard of; it was a free download off of some music blog I frequent, and I am now quite happy I clicked on that mp3 file.  So, I don’t have any real context for appreciating Lake’s “Blue Ocean Blue,” yet that doesn’t inhibit the joy it creates in me.  Another of those songs?  Bob Dylan’s “4^th Time Around,” which is an undeniable classic—a permanent fixture in my canon.  Although a totally mood-appropriate song (as in: listen to it when you’re wistful about romance, like a disillusioned lover still nostalgic for a relationship that was never going to work), it has all the smug charm you’d expect from Dylan, plus some genuinely touching emotional depth. 

OK, then.  And the third?  This might seem like the outlier, but I also was belting Billy Preston’s “Nothing From Noting,” which is a 70s pop-inclined R&B hit.  As in, chart aiming material that soars by its very design, what with the apparent intention to make a song so easily enjoyable that genre restrictions would have held back Preston’s genius.  Looking at these three songs, I should note that they represent three different decades, with almost 40 years between Dylan and Lake.  So how do they cohere to unified criteria?  What aspects of their lyrics or music make them similar?  And why should you care?

I’m starting with a rundown: “Blue Ocean Blue” is clap-happy, pure and simple.  And in the prepubescent way, if that makes sense.  I guess I see its stomping rhythm as chastely innocent, what with the clatter filling out the background making the mood youthfully exuberant.  All the melodies are sweet-natured, from the Paul Simon-esque Africa-lite synth that anchors the song, to the vocals and the bass line.  That synth in particular grabs me; it beeps out a simple melody that sounds more appropriate for a xylophone.  Along with the clapping, the synth forms a warm, fuzzy heart that radiates its good vibe into all other aspects of the song: chirping guitar (which only seems to occur at the beginning) that mimics the carefree joy of sound as the cowbell during the chorus; tambourine splashes hitting beats during the chorus just like the drumsticks knocked together to anchor the verses; the bass that does heavy work to counter the shared melody of the vocals and synth during the verses; and the horns, which punch out muted accents like nothing more than three amateur session players hired to fill out the arrangement for some Al Green knockoff (that may sound like a negative, but it fits the mood perfectly).

So, yeah.  I’m in love with that song.  And, to boot, it’s about “how stealthily joy creeps in when it’s surrounded by destruction,” which means it is of a like mind as Dylan’s “4^th Time Around.”  Oddly reassuring for being so fatalistic, both songs accept the boundaries imposed by conflicting emotions and the uncertainty caused by ambivalence.  Just check the chorus of “Blue Ocean Blue”: “always looking to obscure the most beautiful things / well, I guess that is your right”—[pause a beat]—“unexplainable emotions push you to the wall / ending up chasing an attainable life.”  Although Dylan was never so on the nose about his themes, he used figurative language to tell a story that ends up having the same bitter aftertaste.

“4^th Time Around” opens with the elegant, finger-picked guitar melody that holds up nicely to the pitter-patter drums introduced soon thereafter.  With the addition of another guitar strumming out chords that hit the same accents as the drums (to be honest, the second guitar enters the mix before the drums, but still…), the song is pretty much complete; it holds in that pattern for its entirety, allowing Dylan’s voice and harmonica to take the lead throughout.  This is a more adult tone than “Blue Ocean Blue,” yet the yearning to understand why others respond to you the way they do, especially when you yourself are influenced by romantic feelings, is still strong. 

Dylan approaches the subject differently, though: he paints a picture of a domestic episode, except the cunningly aloof protagonist (portrayed in first person) is not yet involved in a committed relationship.  So, the story more concerns how flirtation can be a weapon for exposing insecurities, gently nudging a person to explain to them how you feel, both positively and negatively.  For example, Dylan uses both lines of dialogue and exposition of actions to depict how offering his last piece of gum becomes a less than friendly gesture: after being kicked out, he returns to get his shirt, asks for a glass of rum—which she refuses—and then says, “You’re words aren’t clear, you better spit out your gum.”  This comes as a dig to the opening lines, attributed to the woman, which state, “Don’t waste your words they’re just lies.”

If you have my sensibility, you understand how awesome this song is, down to the last lines that convey how uncompromising (can be positive or negative…) these two people are: “I never asked for your crutch / now don’t ask for mine.”  He’s saying that he won’t take on her burdens, so she shouldn’t expect him to let her so close that she could share his.  Beautiful.

Crap.  Have I written so much that I just can’t work in “Nothing From Nothing”?  Well, I’ll say it’s jaunty, fun, and concise, even when the piano melody threatens to go all unhinged.  I think the horns go a long way to ground the song, what with them swooping low before reaching fanfare heights to fill the gap between verses.  And, honestly, there is a similar theme to Preston’s song as the others; he sings about how “you gotta have somethin’ / if you wanna be with me” and how he’s “not trying to be [her] hero / ‘cause that zero is too cold for me.”  Essentially, he’s saying he’s not responsible for lifting someone up.

So, maybe that’s what I felt yesterday: a growing sense of personal accountability coupled with a callousness toward anyone who wants me to put him- or herself above me.  Cool; I think I got somewhere with that!

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